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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005432">The One Where Stephanie Lives, Canon Does Not, &amp; Valdug Take a Road Trip</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilboppaloola/pseuds/Lilboppaloola'>Lilboppaloola</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because I can, F/M, Swearing, and doing a degree atm, i am unreliability personified, my shitty writing, no beta we die like men, title will also change when I think of something less shit, updates will be completely random, we're diverging from the moment in TDOTL when Darquesse in Obloquy's body kills Stephanie, welcome to Fuck Phase 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:35:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,726</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23005432</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilboppaloola/pseuds/Lilboppaloola</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Fletcher and Valkyrie had been a little bit quicker, had turned the corner just in time to save Stephanie's life? What if Valkyrie had never had to kill her baby sister for the Sceptre? What if Skulduggery hadn't let her go alone, in the end?<br/>Basically, Stephanie Edgley deserved better (I know, controversial) and I will fight Dipshit Landrover over the fact that Skug would let Val walk away to deal with all that guilt after almost losing her forever to Darquesse. Come along for the ride if you want.<br/>Oh, I almost forgot. We're retconning Ghastly dying for pure shock factor. Because fuck that. (Shudder, my poor sacrificial lamb I'm sorry)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bc y'all know who's writing this, But inevitable, Fletcher Renn/Valkyrie's Reflection, I will defend Steph as a person forever, In the meantime we can just pine, Stephanie Edgley/Fletcher Renn, Valdug will be eventual, Valkyrie Cain &amp; Skulduggery Pleasant, Valkyrie Cain/Skulduggery Pleasant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The One Where Stephanie Lives, Canon Does Not, &amp; Valdug Take a Road Trip</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm writing this whole ass mess for myself more than anything. I know most people hate Stephanie and also valdug so won't want to touch this fic with a barge pole, but I hope y'all give it a try. I absolutely live for honest, blunt feedback. You think my writing is shit? That's fair, please tell me in a comment and I won't get mad. You don't agree with how I characterise someone? Again, totally valid, please leave me your opinion. I want to know what you think, bad as much as good. Obviously, positive feedback is wonderful, but I'd rather people be honest and completely negative than lie. If you wanna be negative and just give me some hate, I'm cool with that, but also maybe give me an explanation/constructive criticism if you're actually interested in seeing things change else I'm not gonna know to do that.<br/>Any kind of comments make my day, and kudos is always nice.<br/>Cheers y'all :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Valkyrie sat with both legs dangling in the cool water and strands of hair falling across her face. It was hot. At a guess, she would have said 80 degrees fahrenheit. She’d been in America too long. She didn’t mind.</p><p>She watched Skulduggery where he lay floating on his back in the middle of the pool, the sun rapidly turning the face of his façade red. They were the only people around, and that was just how she liked it. It was why they’d chosen this motel after all, the one in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the ass end of Tennessee, in the middle of the USA. In just under a decade, they’d been all over this world and its parallel. Yet somehow, Ireland had never seemed further away than right here and now.</p><p>Memories began to creep up on her, tugging at the ends of her long hair. Valkyrie tossed her head back, closed her eyes, and slowly breathed it all out.</p><p>Practice,</p><p>Practice,</p><p>Practice.</p><p>And it was finally working.</p><p> </p><p>Hands, resting on her bare thighs. She opened her eyes and there he was, right in front of her. She hadn’t heard him splashing towards her. Skulduggery gave her a soft smile with the same touch of concern she’d grown so accustomed to, no matter what face he wore.</p><p>She smiled back and poked his cheek. “You have a dimple.”</p><p>He nodded. “So do you.”</p><p>Valkyrie prodded him harder. “I always have a dimple. Yours is like, limited edition.”</p><p>“And therefore you’re inclined to poke it?” He asked skeptically.</p><p>She shrugged, holding back a grin. “It’s cute. Humanizing.”</p><p>Skulduggery blinked at her. “Excuse me?”</p><p>She sighed and shoved his shoulder, watching the light bounce off the water casting patterns on his skin. “You know, you’re usually all edges and angles, this is just… This is just nice.”</p><p>“You tell me now, after years of being partners, that my being a skeleton is unsettling for you?”</p><p>Valkyrie threw herself forward, Skulduggery beneath her as she took them both into the deep end. He grappled with her under the water, grabbed her waist and twisted them sideways. Valkyrie’s head broke the surface and she used the first breath she took to laugh, hard. Skulduggery appeared beside her a second later, making a show of spouting water.</p><p>“That, was incredibly childish.”</p><p>Valkyrie gave him a Look. “Childish questions invite childish responses.”</p><p> </p><p>She watched him drift to the side and deftly pull himself out of the pool. He shook his head like a dog launching drops of water everywhere and there was that bubble of warmth again, settling in her chest amongst her heart and her lungs and everything else keeping her alive. It happened a lot nowadays; he’d do something so shockingly uncivilised and utterly carefree and remind her how different he had become, away from the prying eyes and exigencies of the rest of the world. So had she. And finally, finally, Valkyrie was beginning to believe it was a change for the better.<br/>Even so, the idea of returning to normal, whatever the hell that was, after everything that had happened… Let’s just say it hadn’t gotten any easier, despite any self-improvement she had going for her.</p><p> </p><p>She clambered out of the water and followed Skulduggery back to their room, stealing the first shower. As she stood under the intermittent flow of warm water, Valkyrie let the thoughts of home wash over her, falling in streams down the drain before they could take root in her mind and cause any pain. Home. Her parents, if they still wanted her around. Alice, who might not even remember her more than two years after she’d practically fled the country. And Stephanie, living the ordinary life that Valkyrie herself had left behind a long time ago. Was there any room left for Valkyrie in Ireland now? She didn’t know.</p><p>They’d talked about it, of course, her and Steph camped out in the dark. Two kids huddling together against the harbinger of the apocalypse that was Darquesse. Whom Valkyrie had let roam free. Whom Valkyrie hadn’t stopped, despite having every chance in the world, but none of the guts: just an excess of pride and arrogance.<br/>Stephanie understood, because how could she not? She’d seen each bad choice, each fatal error as Valkyrie made them. There were two people on the planet who knew Valkyrie Cain as well as, if not better, than she knew herself. And while it was nice to have Skulduggery try to ease the responsibility from her shoulders, to stop her from blaming herself, it just wasn’t fair. Not to the 1,351 people who had all died in a matter of hours because Valkyrie just had to keep playing with fire.</p><p> </p><p>She should have walked away.</p><p> </p><p>But now it was done. No changing things. And no escaping the blame.</p><p>Skulduggery knew that. How could he not, after Vile? But he, as Valkyrie herself had once done of him, thought too much of her to let her take the fall for her own actions.<br/>Stephanie had no such qualms. Never had, never would. And Valkyrie needed that almost as much as she needed Skulduggery and his unending, unconditional support. They had an understanding, her and Steph. They’d once, or rather more than once, berated each other until voices had been raised and angry tears had fallen. Not anymore.</p><p>Valkyrie didn’t bring up the fact that her cousin Carol was dead because of Stephanie.</p><p>Stephanie didn’t bring up the fact that Valkyrie had endangered their whole family and was indirectly responsible for somewhere around 1,700 murders, if you counted the Brides of Blood Tears, and that first time, way back when the remnant broke down a wall in her mind and unleashed Darquesse on a load of innocent bystanders.</p><p>If anything, Valkyrie thought she was the one getting off lightly in spite of what anyone else might have to say.</p><p>They understood one another perfectly; Stephanie hadn’t been the person she was now when she’d killed Carol. Of course, she’d still done it. Murder is murder.</p><p> </p><p>But the dead are dead.</p><p> </p><p>You can let the guilt destroy you, or you can undertake the impossible task of trying to make amends. For yourself, even if no one else will give you the chance.<br/>One murder isn’t as bad as hundreds. But the body count doesn’t change the basic principles of guilt or the selfish need to acknowledge it, if only as a weak punishment to keep yourself sane.</p><p>At least, that was what she’d told Skulduggery.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>They were in the Sanctuary again, hidden away in Ghastly’s private quarters until he was let out of the duties demanded of the Grand Mage for the night. It was already past 3am. Stephanie had gone home with Fletcher a while ago, exhausted. Valkyrie envied her just a little bit. She was tired, so tired, always tired these days. She’d lost her parents probably for good, would maybe never see her little sister again, and Darquesse was still out there in her cousin’s body after nearly wiping Gordon from his echo stone to trick them into bringing her down into the caves. She breathed through a sob before it could take her over. Jesus Christ, this was a mess. Valkyrie’s mess.</p><p>Skulduggery spoke quietly. “It was brave, what you did today. After what she did, no one would blame you for turning your back on her.”</p><p>She sighed, dragging a hand through her tangled hair.<br/>“Meaning you still don’t trust Steph and think I shouldn’t have told my parents about her. But what was I supposed to do, Skulduggery?” Valkyrie looked at him, wishing she was still young and easily led and didn’t have to make these kinds of calls. “They’re her family too, you know?”</p><p>He shook his head. Skulduggery was tired too. Of course he was. Tired of her, most likely.</p><p>“Please don’t put words in my mouth, Valkyrie.”</p><p>She had nothing to say for herself, so why bother?</p><p>“What I actually meant is that she killed your cousin and hid things from you for years.” Skulduggery lifted his hat from his skull and dropped it on the coffee table with a sigh. “No matter how much I or anyone else might trust Stephanie now, we’re not the ones she betrayed. She’s your reflection, Valkyrie."</p><p>"Or she was, at least,” he added as an afterthought.</p><p>Valkyrie rubbed her face. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to talk to anybody anymore. She wanted to run far, far away somewhere no one could hurt her and she couldn’t hurt anybody except herself.</p><p>Where had everything gone so wrong, she asked herself.</p><p>You’re selfish, the voice in her head whispered, and it was right.<br/>But still she pushed away the truth, rejected it and the pain it brought, because now wasn’t the right time for pain or for grieving. There was still a war to be won. One last battle. Then Valkyrie was out. Darquesse had fucked off with her magic. She’d pissed off the entire magical community and basically brought about Armageddon. Her parents hated her for lying to them for so long. What use was she to Skulduggery, or to anyone else anymore? No, this was it for the great Valkyrie Cain.</p><p>Valkyrie laughed bitterly, loud in the silence of the room. “She’s a better daughter to them than I ever was.”<br/>Even now, the contempt she had for herself sounded more like self-pity. Ugh.</p><p>“You still have time to make things right, provided we survive the next few days, that is.”<br/>How he still managed to sound upbeat at a time like this would have confused almost everyone but Valkyrie. She knew all of his edges and his quirks. She wanted to be him, except now it was because she wanted to be anyone but herself, not some childish hero worship or whatever. They were long past that.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to survive it,” she said very, very quietly.</p><p>Skulduggery was silent as he gently drew her into his arms. A button dug into her cheek and she dampened the front of his shirt until she could breathe again. His fingertips drew slow, complicated patterns on her back that she felt through her T-shirt.</p><p>“I want you to,” he said. His voice was rough, not its usual velvet in her ear.</p><p>Valkyrie concentrated incredibly hard on not shattering into pieces there and then.</p><p>“You’re probably the only one, then.” Her own voice was thick.</p><p>He pulled back, lifting her chin with one bony finger until she dared meet his gaze.</p><p>“Isn’t that enough?”</p><p>She buried herself in his arms, feeling like they were the only thing left in the world holding all the little pieces of her together.</p><p>“For now,” she murmured.</p><p>“We’ll figure things out, somehow. If anybody deserves a happy ending after this one, it’s you and I.”<br/>She could feel his jaw move when he spoke.</p><p>Valkyrie gave an awkward, non-committal shrug. “We have to defeat a god first.”</p><p>“Near-God," he corrected. "God-like figure.”</p><p>She went as far as to remove her face from his clavicle and laughed. “That makes me feel so much better.”</p><p>Skulduggery wiped the last tear from under her left eye. “You’ve killed two gods already. And you didn’t even have my help then. We’ll be just fine.”</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>“Where do you want to go next?”</p><p>Valkyrie continued to plait her damp hair into two heavy braids and said nothing. It was getting pretty long. She briefly considered cutting it, aiming for some sort of catharsis maybe, but immediately wrote that off as a bad idea. Maybe in a different state.</p><p>She startled when Skulduggery placed a mug of coffee on the table in front of her.</p><p>“Valkyrie?”</p><p>His voice was still the same, still rich and smooth and blatantly Irish, no matter how many times they’d both faked different accents to blend in with the tourist crowd. Annoyingly, Valkyrie herself had started to pick up on certain Americanisms. The change itself was fine. The blatant teasing whenever she said “sidewalk” instead of “pavement” was not.</p><p>“How about the Grand Canyon?” she asked, waving a pale hand. “I could use some sun.”</p><p>He looked at her pointedly. “That’s in Arizona.”</p><p>Valkyrie stared back, waiting for him to read the obliviousness on her face.</p><p>Skulduggery sighed. “You have no idea where Arizona is, do you?”</p><p>She frowned. “Rude.”</p><p>“Do you even know where we are now?” he asked curiously.</p><p>She laughed, then. “You seriously think I’d forget, Mr. ‘You’re the only ten I see?’”</p><p>He pretended to be looking out the window and didn’t reply.</p><p>Valkyrie pulled the bobble from around her wrist and tied off her second braid. “I know we’re in Memphis, and that we went to the big river, and that it’s pretty warm here for October but not as warm as other places we’ve been.” She shrugged. “That’s about the limits of my US geography, Skulduggery.” The way she said his name was one thing that hadn’t changed, would never.</p><p>The skeleton leaning on the windowsill tilted his head at her in a smile. “The big river was the Mississippi. And Arizona is next to Las Vegas. Does that help your appalling sense of direction any?”</p><p>She actually snorted. “I think I’ve sat through maybe four geography classes since we met? And the only thing I honestly remember from that dark time is the water cycle.” Valkyrie watched him and knew this was one of those times when it killed him to not have eyes to roll. “Oh, and longshore drift. Whatever that is,” she added with a nod.</p><p>Skulduggery just shook his head. “Remind me again whose idea it was to take a road trip around America?”</p><p>Valkyrie grinned up at him. “That would be me. In my defense though, you wouldn’t let me go off alone. I was going to get a dog or something. Become a hermit. So, technically, this is your fault.”</p><p>He scoffed. “You are far too attention-deficit to go five minutes without talking someone’s ear off, never mind any extended period of self-imposed punishment.”</p><p>“Okay well, first of all, that’s rich coming from you, gob on legs.” Skulduggery chuckled. She took a thoughtful gulp of milky coffee to justify the warm feeling in her chest. “It’s a good thing you never came with ears even in the beginning,” she said.</p><p>“I’m sorry, came with? What am I, a child’s birthday gift? Some kind of new animatronic, perhaps? The all-new walking, talking, Dry Bones! Only $99.95! Coming to a store near you!” He was mimicking one of those stupid infomercial things that seemed to be on every channel at every hour of the day and night. He filled the dim motel room, brightening it to the dusty corners. Valkyrie couldn’t help but smile at him.</p><p>“You are far too sarcastic for your own good, you know that?”</p><p>“Nonsense. Well, perhaps. Either way I made you laugh.” That smug bloody head tilt. Bastard.</p><p>“Piss off. Are we going to the Grand Canyon or what?”</p><p>Skulduggery snapped a thread off the hem of his T-shirt. “You do realise it’s over a full day’s drive away, don’t you?”</p><p>“Huh. Awesome. Let’s roll, bones.” With that decided, Valkyrie put down her mug and flopped face-first onto the bed.</p><p>“It looks like the only rolling you plan on doing this evening is from your stomach to your back.” She lifted her head just high enough to speak without it coming out completely muffled.</p><p>“As always, you are correct. Well done. We’ll leave in the morning or something.” Valkyrie lay there for a minute, face pressed into flat pillows that somehow had the same weird motel smell as all the other places they’d stayed. She’d slept on worse, much worse, so she wasn’t about to complain. This time, anyway.</p><p>Skulduggery flopped down beside her and prodded her in the ribs until she let out a theatrical sigh and rolled over to give him some room. “You know, for a bag of bones, you’re a real space hogger,” she muttered into the sheets.</p><p>He chuckled, and she heard him pick up a book from the bedside table. “Goodnight, Valkyrie.”</p><p>She mumbled her own goodnight but there was no doubt he’d still catch it.</p>
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